"SCRANTON - Police are looking for a 9-year-old boy last seen about 10 a.m. Saturday.

Geovanny Ramirez did not return to his home at 1610 Townhouse Blvd. after telling his mother he was going across the street to play, police said.

The boy was likely wearing an orange shirt and green shorts, police said. Police received reports he may have been seen at McDade Park on Saturday. Anyone with information is asked to call police at 348-4134."

There are a couple of things pissing me off about this story. One, no Amber Alert was issued. Two, why no TV news coverage about this? Three, he's been missing for over 24 hours, and the local paper is only reporting it now?

As far as the Amber Alert goes... the facts of the case didn't meet the requirements for activation. They are REAL strict with the rules for activation and won't budge wit them. The rules can be found here:

Thanks, I was unaware of the Amber criteria. I still think it's fucked up that his disappearance didn't even rate a blurb on the Saturday evening news; the story wasn't reported until the Sunday paper ran it.

(06-24-2013, 12:46 PM)jahwarrior72 Wrote: Thanks, I was unaware of the Amber criteria. I still think it's fucked up that his disappearance didn't even rate a blurb on the Saturday evening news; the story wasn't reported until the Sunday paper ran it.

Its tough to know what the story was with the media. Some departments have no inside contacts with the media and some have great ones that just pick up the phone and have three news trucks outside in a heartbeat. Department size has nothing to do with media access either. Some smaller ones can get great features when they need media help with crime cases.

I have to agree with you...this one should have gotten some help from your local media. Lucky it had a happy ending.

Press releases are huge... that way the PD's do a lot of the work for the news outlets.

Your 0200 dumpster fires and overnight stuff are easy to report stories because all of the news stations have overnight cameramen who listen to the police scanner and drive from news story to news story to grab footage and a little news blurb.